Dr. Susan E. Townsend is a Research Associate for the Wildlife Conservation Society in Bronx, New York completing research on the Siberian marmot (Marmota sibirica), documenting a catastrophic decline and assisting in efforts to conserve this species in one of the last intact grassland ecosystems in the world, the Eastern Steppe of Mongolia. As part of this effort, she is documenting the keystone role of this species for mesocarnivores and raptors and completing a carnivore diet study. Finally, she and others in the WCS Mongolia Program are working with local community herder groups and the Specially Protected Area Administration to conserve their wildlife. Additionally, she runs her own environmental consulting business, Wildlife Ecology and Consulting, in California, specializing in threatened and endangered species, particularly the San Joaquin kit fox (Vulpes macrotis mutica). She completed her graduate research at the University of Colorado in Boulder on social cognition in captive wolves, including the rare Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi).

Her original training is in animal behavior and cognitive ethology; her more recent work emphasizes non-invasive monitoring methods, detecting rare species and carnivore ecology. Dr. Townsend’s other research experience includes the ecology of Adelie penguins in Cape Royds, Antarctica, chemosensory behavior of the hermit crab at the Marine Biological Laboratories in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, the social behavior and ecology of the sea hare (Aplysia dactylomela) in La Paguera, Puerto Rico with Dr. Ethel Tobach, Curator of Animal Behavior at the American Natural History Museum in New York, and home range and group size of the bluehead wrasse (Thalassoma bifasciatum) in St John’s Virgin Islands. Her teaching experience includes a Design and Data Analysis course for Mongolian University students through Zoological Society of London’s Steppe Forward Program, marine biology and language skills to dyslexic high school students in a sailing program overseas, developing outdoor ecology and literacy programs for an award winning Futures Program for inner city youth at the Lady Maryland Foundation in Baltimore Maryland, and tutoring learning disabled high school students. She taught numerous biology, mammalogy and animal behavior labs and courses as a graduate student.